


A Long Day

by Robin Hood (kjack89)



Series: The Time of Day [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 14:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: After a full forty-five seconds, during which time he contemplated smashing his clock or throwing it out the window of his eighth-floor apartment, he groaned again and reached out to smack it into silence. Then he lay back and stared up at the ceiling.He loved his job, really he did, but Carisi had worked three days in a row of overtime, and he was half-tempted to call in sick to work, to stay in bed, to catch up on sleep, something he’d been meaning to do since about 2013, or, if he was forced to get out of bed, catch up on laundry and cleaning his apartment, something he’d been meaning to do for...longer than he cared to admit.Carisi just wanted bad guys to take a day off so that he could take a day off.Carisi's day leading up to the events ofA Late Night.





	A Long Day

**Author's Note:**

> There may be more to come from this 'verse. We'll see how the spirit moves me.
> 
> Ub-beta'd, so likely more typos than usual.
> 
> Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

5:30am  


Carisi’s alarm blared and he groaned, opening one eye to squint at the red numbers on the clock before burying his head in his pillow and hoping that his alarm might magically stop on its own.

It didn’t.

After a full forty-five seconds, during which time he contemplated smashing his clock or throwing it out the window of his eighth-floor apartment, he groaned again and reached out to smack it into silence. Then he lay back and stared up at the ceiling.

He loved his job, really he did, but Carisi had worked three days in a row of overtime, and he was half-tempted to call in sick to work, to stay in bed, to catch up on sleep, something he’d been meaning to do since about 2013, or, if he was forced to get out of bed, catch up on laundry and cleaning his apartment, something he’d been meaning to do for...longer than he cared to admit.

Carisi just wanted bad guys to take a day off so that he could take a day off.

But when his backup alarm went off five minutes later, Carisi heaved a sigh and turned it off before sitting up in bed and raking a hand through his hair. After all, as tired as he might be, as much as he might want to stay in bed, he knew that he had no right to, not when Liv and Amanda had been pulling the exact same hours when they had kids that they barely got to see.

He was Catholic, after all, and guilt was a powerful motivator.

A powerful enough motivator to get himself out of bed and into the shower and under scalding hot water in the hopes that it might wake him up enough for him to make it into work without wanting to crawl back into bed.

Or at the very least, to wake him up enough for him to make it to the café on the way to the precinct and pick up some coffee.

Carisi had a feeling he was gonna need some coffee to make it through the day.

  


6:45am  


“I brought coffee,” Carisi announced as he made his way into the precinct, a cardboard carrier in hand.

Amanda actually made grabby hands at him. “My hero,” she sighed when he handed her a cup of coffee, taking a deep sip and closing her eyes in assumed bliss. “I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t,” Fin said, also accepting a cup of coffee from Carisi, who just laughed. “I mean, no one wants to see that.”

Amanda threw a paperclip at Fin, who ducked and laughed. Carisi rolled his eyes and laughed as well. “Frankly, I don’t wanna see that either, sorry Amanda,” he said, grabbing Liv’s coffee and setting his own down on his desk. “Tempting though the thought may be…”

He trailed off and winked at Amanda, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

Carisi was about to take Liv’s coffee to her when the door to her office opened and she stepped outside, her expression serious. “Carisi, Rollins, there’s a vic at New York Pres,” she announced, a file in her hands.

“Got it, Lieu,” Carisi said, his smile fading, and he smoothly exchanged the file for the coffee in his hand. “I’m assuming you want us to meet the vic at the hospital?”

Olivia looked down at the coffee in her hand as if confused as to how it got there, but then just shrugged and took a sip. “Yes,” she sighed. “The nurse called and said that there were signs of sexual assault. Get the vic’s statement and keep me posted.”

Carisi nodded and turned to Amanda. “You wanna drive?”

“During morning rush hour?” Amanda asked, arching an eyebrow at him. “Do you _want_ me to commit vehicular manslaughter this early in the morning?”

“It’s not manslaughter if it’s premeditated—” Carisi started, breaking off when he saw the look on Amanda’s face. “Nevermind. I’ll drive.”

He was already out the door and heading for the squad car before he realized that he left his coffee on his desk.

  


9:02am  


Carisi stirred copious quantities of powdered creamer into the hospital cafeteria coffee in the desperate hope that it would cut the overwhelmingly bitter flavor.

He took a sip and winced.

The creamer hadn’t done the trick.

Still, bitter coffee was better than no coffee, and since Carisi didn’t have anything better to do, he might as well choke down bitter coffee and hope for the best.

The vic had taken one look at him and practically curled into a ball, and Carisi had taken that as his cue to leave Rollins with the vic and make himself scarce. And he’d taken that as his excuse to go in search of the caffeine he absolutely, desperately needed.

Even if it had to come in the form of hospital coffee.

Hospital coffee that was apparently only available in 8 ounce increments, which wasn’t even remotely enough caffeine for him on a good day, let alone on his fourth day of what was inevitably going to turn into overtime in a row.

He had managed to get a solid sixteen ounces of something between water and gasoline when Amanda appeared in the cafeteria and jerked her head, indicating that he should follow. He abandoned the coffee, figuring it frankly wasn’t worth bringing. “What’ve we got?’ he asked, following her back towards the car.

“A lead,” she said grimly. “The vic identified our perp.” Carisi nodded and Amanda held her hand out expectantly. “I’m driving.”

Carisi decided in an instant that it wasn’t worth arguing.

  


10:39am  


“You know I love Frannie, right?” Carisi called over his shoulder.

Amanda swiveled to frown at him. “Of course I do,” she called back. “Why?”

Carisi eyed the pomeranian that was currently growling at him from its position in the corner of the perp’s bedroom, its tiny little fangs bared. “Because I’m about to say some uncharitable things about dogs, and I want you to know that Frannie’s excluded.”

Though Amanda laughed, she also rolled her eyes, turning back to the mess of belongings the perp had seemingly left behind when he fled after they’d buzzed up to his apartment. “Leave the dog alone, Carisi,” she said. “I doubt the pooch’ll tell us much.”

“I think there’s a bit of vic’s dress in the dog’s mouth,” Carisi told her, crouching down to get on the dog’s level. “Otherwise I’d be more than happy to let the little devil run around.”

The dog snapped at him at he reached out for it, and Carisi quickly pulled back. Amanda made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a hastily smothered laugh. “Let CSU deal with it,” she said dismissively. “We’ve got actual work to do.”

Carisi held out his hand towards the dog slowly, feeling reassured when the dog didn’t snap at him this time. “It’s fine,” he told Amanda, keeping his voice calm and soothing. “Dogs love me. And I could be getting a crucial piece of evidence.”

“The only thing you’re gonna get is bit,” Amanda informed him dryly.

Carisi rolled his eyes, and the dog took his momentary distraction as its opportunity to flee between his legs. Carisi twisted, trying to grab it as it ran past, and only succeeded in crashing to the floor. “Son of a _bitch_ ,” he huffed before getting to his feet and going after the furry terror.

He had _not_ had enough caffeine to deal with this.

  


11:46am  


“I told you so.”

Carisi sighed and rolled his eyes. “You said that already,” he snapped. “Matter of fact, you said that _eight_ times while driving me back here.”

Amanda didn’t bother hiding her grin. To her credit, she had verified that he was alright after the pomeranian had sunk its teeth into his hand before she laughed, but Carisi wasn’t exactly feeling charitable.

Especially since they were back at the same damn hospital where they’d already spent an hour and a half that same morning.

Carisi couldn’t quite believe it had just been _that_ morning that they were at the hospital.

It had already been a long day, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

The nurse opened the curtain in the emergency room and bustled inside. “Dog bite, hm?” she said, sounding almost sympathetic. “Those can be nasty.”

Amanda choked on a laugh and Carisi glared at her before giving the nurse his most charming smile. “Nah, I don’t think it even broke the skin,” he told her. “But, you know, gotta get it checked out, department regulations and all that. You know how that goes.”

The nurse nodded in understanding and unwrapped the dish towel that Amanda had stolen from the perp’s apartment for him to wrap his hand in — “To keep you from bleeding in the squad car,” Amanda had told him between bursts of laughter. Carisi winced at the wound, not because it looked bad, but because it looked even more pathetic under the harsh fluorescent lights.

He was pretty sure he’d had worse papercuts than the tiny puncture wounds that had long-stopped bleeding and slight bruise on his hand.

“That’s going to need an x-ray,” the nurse told him after a brief examination.

“What?” Carisi protested. “Why? It’s a dog bite from a pomeranian so small I’m not convinced it wasn’t a very fluffy rat.”

The nurse pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Because the dog bit your hand, and the bones in the hand are very fragile,” she informed him frostily. “Besides, I’ll have you know that I have a pomeranian, and they’re wonderful and very loyal dogs.”

She turned on heel and marched out of the room, and Carisi called after her, “I’m sure they are, ma’am, but—” though she was already out of earshot by that point.

Amanda let out a laugh that could really only be described as a cackle. “I told—” she started, but Carisi just groaned and laid back against the examining table.

“I know, I know,” he sighed. “You told me so.”

  


5:25pm  


After spending _four_ hours waiting for an x-ray and a doctor to pronounce his hand perfectly fine, Carisi had walked back into the precinct to mocking applause. He had glared at Amanda. “Did you tell _everyone_?” he hissed.

“Didn’t have to,” Fin had informed him with a grin, leaning back in his seat. “Some of the beat cops at the scene thought it was the funniest thing they’d seen in their entire time on the force, and word spread.”

Carisi had groaned and slumped down at his desk.

Luckily, the attention had died down pretty quickly, and Carisi had actually been able to get some work done. Which was good, because he was hoping to leverage his injury — both to his hand and to his pride — to get Liv to let him go home early.

He was just about to stand and head to Liv’s office to ask if he could head out when Amanda’s phone rang. “Hey, what’s—” she started before she was apparently cut off by whomever was on the other end. “Whoa, slow down, ok? What’s going on?”

Her eyes widened and she stood. “Everything ok?” Carisi asked, concerned.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Amanda said before hanging up. “It’s Jesse, she’s got a fever and a rash and—”

“Hey, hey, hey, slow down,” Carisi said soothingly. “I’m sure it’s nothing. You know how kids get. But head home and take care of her.”

Amanda managed a tight smile and nodded, though she sighed and looked at her desk. “I’ve got paperwork—”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Carisi said firmly. “I’ll take care of it. You just go see Jesse, alright?”

“Thanks,” Amanda told him, grabbing her coat and bag and heading out of the precinct.

Carisi looked mournfully from his own almost-completed paperwork to the stack still on Amanda’s desk. He knew that Amanda needed to be home with Jesse, and he wasn’t regretting his offer to help, but knowing that wasn’t going to help ward off the headache he could feel building in his temples or the exhaustion he’d been trying to keep at bay all day.

With a sigh, he stood and headed for the breakroom.

He was gonna need more coffee.  


 

8:44pm  


“Didn’t I tell you that you could go home a few hours ago?” Olivia asked, sounding almost amused as she came out of her office, clearly ready to go home for the night.

Carisi rubbed his eyes and glanced up at the clock. “Yeah,” he sighed, leaning back in his seat. “But I was trying to get all this done and then, you know…” He shrugged. “Lost track of time.”

Olivia’s expression softened. “Go home and get some sleep,” she ordered. “Especially since you’ve had a long day.” She nodded at his hand and Carisi rolled his eyes and sighed. Olivia laughed lightly and gave him a look. “I mean it, though. Even I’m going home, at least as soon as I drop this off at Barba’s office.”

She held up the file in her hand. “I’ll take it,” Carisi offered.

Olivia frowned. “That’s not exactly on your way home, Carisi.”

“More on my way than yours,” Carisi told her, standing and grabbing the file from her before she could protest. “Now go play some robots with Noah, Lieu.”

For a moment, it looked like Olivia might protest, but she settled for shaking her head and giving him a soft smile. “Thanks, Carisi,” she said. “I’ll tell Noah Uncle Sonny says hi.”

Carisi grinned at that and grabbed his coat off of his chair. Barba’s office really _wasn’t_ on his way home, but honestly, given the day he’d had, he might as well take the extra twenty minutes to drop the file off on Carmen’s desk.

Maybe he’d even leave a note for Barba, something pithy and funny, something that would put a smile on Barba’s face when he came in the next day.

The thought of Barba’s smile was enough to hold his exhaustion at bay as he made his way to the elevators.  


 

9:22pm  


Barba was not smiling.

In fact, Barba looked downright miserable, surrounded by stacks of casefiles.

“Ordinarily, Detective,” Barba said tiredly, looking up at him, “I’d accuse you of inviting yourself in without my permission, there’d be banter and we’d spend the next fifteen minutes engaging in mostly harmless flirting before you went on your way.”

Carisi’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline and he stared at Barba in surprise. Not at the fact that Barba saw their banter as flirting — because, Christ, it’d take an idiot not to realize that Carisi was flirting, since subtlety had never been one of Carisi’s strong suits, and Rafael Barba was no idiot — but at the fact that he’d be willing to acknowledge it for what it was out loud.

Something warm spread through Carisi’s chest as Barba continued, “But unfortunately for you, the defense filed no fewer than twenty-seven motions to either suppress or dismiss today which means I have to find twenty-seven different pieces of precedent, since I doubt the judge will buy my argument of ‘you’ve got to be fucking kidding me’.”

He was clearly aiming for a joke, but Carisi didn’t laugh, hearing the edge of something like desperation that clung to Barba’s voice.

Carisi was so tired that he could barely see straight, and the thought of getting back to his apartment where he could peel off his suit and kick off his shoes and collapse face-first on his bed was the only thing that had kept him going for the past two hours.

But Barba looked even more exhausted than Carisi felt, that wrinkle — the one that Carisi had spent way too much time thinking about kissing to smooth it from his forehead — creasing his forehead, and Carisi heard himself offering, without even meaning to, “Well then, let me help you.”

Barba blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.”

Carisi’s eyes narrowed as he tried to interpret Barba’s tone to figure out what possible objection he’d be raising to the offer of help. He went with the most obvious. “I do have my law degree,” he pointed out. “Pretty sure I can manage to read through some case law and pull precedent for you.”

“For once, I wasn’t questioning your ability,” Barba said, and Carisi was surprised to hear the sincerity in his voice. A flicker of something Carisi couldn’t quite read crossed his face as he asked, “But why in the world would you voluntarily spend the evening helping me sort through case law?”

Carisi’s initial instinct was to give a variation of the truth, that he was nothing if not helpful, as the day’s events had proven time and again. But there was something in Barba’s expression, something that made Carisi want to at least hint at this thing between them.

Because Carisi _was_ helpful, and enjoyed helping people. 

But there was no one else that he’d make this offer to.

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “you said you were too busy for harmless flirting, so…”

Barba laughed, but something lit up in his expression, and Carisi was hopeful enough — or dumb enough — to think that it wasn’t just because he had offered to help, but because it was _him_ who had offered to help. “Fine,” he said, and that wrinkle on his forehead smoothed, just slightly. “But when it’s three hours from now and you’re miserable and hate me, just remember that you volunteered for this.”

Carisi laughed and settled for grinning at Barba, mostly to stop himself from blurting something stupid, like how he’d volunteer for pretty much anything when it came to Barba. “Deal,” he said instead, hold his hand out for a case file. “Where do you want me to start?”

  
 

3:27am 

  
Carisi could hardly believe what was happening, that Barba’s lips were pressed against his, that Barba’s thigh was slotted between his own, that Barba was draped on top of him as they made out on the couch in Barba’s office like horny teenagers.

It was everything Carisi had ever wanted and so much more.

Which was why he hated himself for grabbing Barba’s hand when he started to unzip Carisi’s pants, panting, “Hang on,” against Barba’s lips.

Barba flinched back as if he’d been scalded, and Carisi instantly realized that, given their line of work, he needed to be very clear that it wasn't because he didn't want this.

Because,  _Christ_ , he wanted this.

So he tugged Barba back to him and kissed him once more, a slower, sweeter kiss, resting a hand against the side of Barba’s neck and just looking at him for a moment.

God, he was gorgeous.

“I want — I mean, shit, I've wanted this for so long,” he said softly. 

Barba was deliciously flushed and there was something almost tentative in the smile he gave Carisi as he admitted, “As have I.” He cocked an eyebrow before asking, “Then why…?”

“I'm afraid I'm gonna fall asleep on you,” Carisi admitted with a weak laugh.

Barba snorted and leaned down to rest his forehead against Carisi’s shoulder. “Jesus,” he huffed, but Carisi could feel his lips curve into a smile against him.

“I know,” Carisi said, laughing again, and he pressed a kiss to the top of Barba’s head before forcing himself to sit up, as much as every part of him wanted nothing more than to stay on that couch with Barba forever. “Which means it's my cue to head home.” He looked over at Barba. “But we should, uh, do this again. For real this time.”

Barba’s expression was unreadable for a moment, but then he nodded. “Agreed,” he said before yawning widely. “But you should stay. No sense going home at this hour.”

Carisi glanced warily at the couch, which really wasn't wide enough for the both of them. This was likely a terrible idea, and if he was a smarter man, he'd insist on going home.

Then again, Carisi didn't exactly have a reputation of intelligence to maintain here.

So he shrugged and bent over to untie his shoes before tugging his tie off and setting it on top of the shoes. Then he laid back down on Barba’s couch, hesitating for only a moment before drawing Barba to him.

He had been right. The couch really wasn't big enough for both of them.

It certainly wasn't long enough for Carisi, who had to bend his knees at an awkward angle to both fit on the couch and also hold Barba against him.

But it also felt absolutely perfect.

He closed his eyes and breathed in Barba’s scent, warm and familiar and everything he'd ever wanted. “Goodnight, Rafael,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Sonny,” Barba murmured back, his nickname never sounding sweeter than it did on Barba’s lips, lips he had finally kissed, lips that, if Carisi played his cards right and didn't say anything too ungodly stupid the following morning, there was a very good chance he'd get to kiss again.

That was a thought that made even the longest day in recent memory completely worth it.

And Carisi fell asleep with a smile on his face.


End file.
